#192 – Annie Jacobsen on what would happen if North Korea launched a nuclear weapon at the US

80,000 Hours Podcast

"Ring one: total annihilation; no cellular life remains. Ring two, another three-mile diameter out: everything is ablaze. Ring three, another three or five miles out on every side: third-degree burns among almost everyone. You are talking about people who may have gone down into the secret tunnels beneath Washington, DC, escaped from the Capitol and such: people are now broiling to death; people are dying from carbon monoxide poisoning; people who followed instructions and went into their basement are dying of suffocation. Everywhere there is death, everywhere there is fire.

"That iconic mushroom stem and cap that represents a nuclear blast — when a nuclear weapon has been exploded on a city — that stem and cap is made up of people. What is left over of people and of human civilisation." —Annie Jacobsen

In today’s episode, host Luisa Rodriguez speaks to Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times bestselling author Annie Jacobsen about her latest book, Nuclear War: A Scenario.

Links to learn more, highlights, and full transcript.

They cover:

• The most harrowing findings from Annie’s hundreds of hours of interviews with nuclear experts.
• What happens during the window that the US president would have to decide about nuclear retaliation after hearing news of a possible nuclear attack.
• The horrific humanitarian impacts on millions of innocent civilians from nuclear strikes.
• The overlooked dangers of a nuclear-triggered electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack crippling critical infrastructure within seconds.
• How we’re on the razor’s edge between the logic of nuclear deterrence and catastrophe, and urgently need reforms to move away from hair-trigger alert nuclear postures.
• And plenty more.

Chapters:

• Cold open (00:00:00)
• Luisa’s intro (00:01:03)
• The interview begins (00:02:28)
• The first 24 minutes (00:02:59)
• The Black Book and presidential advisors (00:13:35)
• False alarms (00:40:43)
• Russian misperception of US counterattack (00:44:50)
• A narcissistic madman with a nuclear arsenal (01:00:13)
• Is escalation inevitable? (01:02:53)
• Firestorms and rings of annihilation (01:12:56)
• Nuclear electromagnetic pulses (01:27:34)
• Continuity of government (01:36:35)
• Rays of hope (01:41:07)
• Where we’re headed (01:43:52)
• Avoiding politics (01:50:34)
• Luisa’s outro (01:52:29)

Producer and editor: Keiran Harris
Audio engineering team: Ben Cordell, Simon Monsour, Milo McGuire, and Dominic Armstrong
Additional content editing: Katy Moore and Luisa Rodriguez
Transcriptions: Katy Moore